


Crying Out

by MelyndaR



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22957855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: Single mothers are being killed, and when Anderson figures out that the unsub is someone close to him, he decides to light a fire under Hotchner and his team by giving this case a personal element for them and anonymously leaving the victims' orphans on the team's doorsteps. (originally posted 4/1/14 on FF.net)
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my rather weak (in my mind, anyway) stab at a case fic.

_February 28, 2014_

She walked quickly through the darkened streets. Even though it was only in the wee hours of the morning, the city still had enough people out and about that she went unnoticed amongst them all. As it was, there was apparently nothing particularly interesting about her. She was a plain woman in her mid-thirties, though she looked even older. Dark curls of greasy black hair framed a face that had been weathered by time and hardship, brushing the shoulders of her dark, wool trench coat. She walked quickly, shoulders hunched over against the chill of a late February in Washington, D.C.

Like most everyone in this metropolis, she had somewhere to go and something to hide.

* * *

_March 6, 2014_

"Grant, is that you?" Agent Grant Anderson's sister called out as he hung his suit up on the hat stand.

"Yeah, Mags, it's me," Grant called back, walking into the kitchen.

His sister, Maggie Richards, came to stand in the doorway, asking, "Did you pick up some milk like I asked you to this morning?"

Grant groaned, starting to root around in the refrigerator for something that didn't make his stomach churn. "No! I knew I forgot something!"

"I've been at you over this for three days!" Maggie complained. "It's just milk! How hard can it be to remember something that simple?"

"I know, Mags," Grant groaned, slamming the refrigerator door shut. "It's just been a hard couple of days at the office… distracting stuff."

"You're seeing stuff that's as bad as all that?" Maggie asked, becoming a little more understanding as she referenced his job at the BAU.

Grant shrugged, turning to face his sister. "I've just been in the right place at the right time, I guess – or the wrong time, really."

"You know, milk really isn't that big of a deal," Maggie said – her way of apologizing for snapping at him.

"And _you_ know that it wouldn't be a bad thing for you to get out of this apartment every once in awhile – even if it just is to get a quart of milk. Just because you've gotten a divorce from Bruce doesn't mean that you can become a hermit. Seriously, sis, when was the last time you went somewhere and did something?"

"I get out," Maggie said, mildly defensive.

Grant didn't believe her, and his tone said as much as he folded his arms across her chest and asked, "Really?"

"Yes, really; I even have plans for tomorrow evening."

"Where?"

"Volunteering around town. You're the one who told me I needed to make a friend since I moved here from Rhode Island, right? Why are you so surprised?"

"Because in plan and practice you don't usually listen to your little brother. What time are you going to be going out tomorrow?"

"It'll be after you're already in bed."

Grant raised his eyebrows in surprise, silently inquiring.

"I've started occasionally doing work with some prostitutes in the area. The anonymity of nighttime makes it easier."

Grant was just relieved to hear that his adopted Irish twin – she was eleven months older than him – was getting out of the house, and for such a good reason. It was just Maggie's way to be private, so he didn't ask any more questions.

* * *

_March 7, 2014_

" _And in further news, the continuing investigation into the double murder of a mother and her newborn child that occurred late Friday evening has ground to a halt. The police have reached a dead end, although the woman was confirmed to be a local elementary school teacher who is now thought t-"_

The next morning, Grant groaned and tuned out the newswoman on the radio, saying, "Mags, can we please not listen to the news this morning? I get enough of this crap at work. Right now I'm just thanking God that it's Friday."

Maggie reached across the counter where she was eating her breakfast and and switched the radio onto variety station, saying casually, "Sure."

"I mean, what sort of a freak show kills an elementary school teacher and her _baby_?"

"Yeah," Maggie mused quietly to herself. "The baby kind of was overkill, wasn't it?"

"What?" Grant asked, not sure he had heard her correctly.

"Nothing," Maggie said casually, shaking her head. "You'd better hurry or else you're going to be late for work."

"Yes, mother," Grant said, affectionately rolling his eyes as he made his coffee to go.

"I'm your sister, not your mother!"

"Only by adoption!" he called out cheerfully as he left her behind in the kitchen and headed towards the door, making use of an old argument between them.

"It still counts as long as you love me!"

"Who says I love you?" Grant asked with a smile.

Her smile was as good-humored as his as she answered, "You do and you know it."

"Yes, I do," Grant said as he headed out the door, freezing with the door open as he remembered, "Oh! Hey, I'll try to remember the milk today, okay?"

"Don't bother;" Maggie said. "I'll pick some up tonight when I'm on my way home."

"Right; okay." He grinned at her one last time before he headed into work.

* * *

The woman in the trench coat was back on the streets again, walking in steps that were a little more agitated then before. She had changed her game plan this time and had left the little one alive. After all, it really wasn't the baby's fault. Sure, the baby was what changed everything – didn't children always change things? – but it wasn't that poor things _fault_ that it had been born; it was just a product of the real problem. And tonight she had put an end to one more of the real problems – given her the punishment that she deserved for ruining a _real_ love and for trying to take over what already belonged to someone else.

She knew that she had done the right thing in leaving that baby alive – someone would find it eventually – but it still made her nervous, even though she knew that there was no way that baby could speak up and say what it had seen her do. So she walked a little stiffer, a little more hunched over, a little faster, all the while telling herself that she just wanted to get home so that she could get the milk that she had bought in the fridge while it was still cold.


	2. Chapter 2

_March 10, 2014_

Agent Grant Anderson gasped when he entered the BAU bullpen Monday morning only to run straight into Penelope Garcia.

"I'm so sorry!" he apologized as papers from a dozen or more files fluttered onto the ground all around them.

"It's alright, Anderson," Garcia said sweetly, stooping down to gather up the papers.

Grant knelt down beside her and began to pick them up as well. Seeing what they were, he asked, "Did you guys get a new case?"

"No," Garcia said. "These are the ones that Hotch decided weren't – I hate how this sounds! – worth going to investigate in person."

"It's alright; I understand," Grant replied, picking up one photo in particular. "Hey, isn't this that elementary teacher who was killed with her baby?"

Garcia nodded.

"Aren't you going to look into it?"

The tech analyst shook her head. "Not unless something else comes up in definite relation to it, I'm afraid; we just don't have that sort of time or manpower. We can't make any one case our priority unless it looks like the killer isn't going to stop until he's forced to. This job is sad that way." Grant nodded, grimacing at the truth of it as he and Garcia stood up and she added, "Maybe we'll get on that case if the police find enough evidence that the murder that happened Friday night is proven to be by the same killer."

"What?" Grant asked in surprise.

Garcia sounded as surprised as he had as she asked, "You didn't hear about the other murder?"

Grant shook his head. "I needed a news-free weekend, so I didn't listen to any news or see anything on the computer."

"Well, from what I've heard and seen – I don't look at the case file unless I absolutely must after we take the case on – is that there was another woman and her baby in the woman's home on Friday night, and the woman was killed like in the other murder, but this time the baby was left alive. That's why Hotch isn't sure whether or not it's serial."

"Well, at least the kid is still alive. As a matter of fact, my sister and I were even talking about that baby's murder Friday morning. She'll be glad to know that this baby's still alive."

Garcia smiled and then was off on her way with a congenial "good morning." Grant was left standing there, pondering how pathetic the things were that passed for good news in this place before he went off to make a pot of coffee before Dr. Reid got here and realized that there was none.

Something about that case didn't sit right with him, but he couldn't identify what it was, so he pushed it out of his mind, deciding that there were all sorts of things that probably didn't sit right with someone who had his job.

At lunchtime that afternoon, Grant walked into the kitchenette of the bullpen, heading for the mini refrigerator and his leftover pasta. Agent Hotchner and the new section chief, Matt Cruz, were sitting at the table already. Realizing that Cruz and Hotchner were having a quiet disagreement – about the case that Grant had discussed with Garcia earlier, no less - he inadvertently began to listen in while popping his lunch into the microwave.

"You know that murder from Friday is the same unsub, Agent Hotchner," Cruz was saying pointedly. "This is going on in our own backyard! I won't order you and your team to do anything more than a normal from-your-desks consultation on the case, but I seriously think that you should reconsider giving it a closer look."

"I've seen no evidence that this isn't something that police can't handle on their own," Agent Hotchner answered evenly. "I would even be willing to bet that the unsub is devolving since – if it is the same killer – he left the baby alive this time. He'll slip up soon and the police will catch him then without our help. My team and I simply have too heavy a workload at the moment; we cannot handle making this a priority case at this time."

"You know better than I do that this man isn't _devolving_! He showed no increased rage, no less care in cleaning up the crime scene, nothing that would indicate devolution. If anything he's _e_ volving, getting more comfortable in his skin and in what he's doing to these women. You heard about the first murder in detail, right? The one that happened Friday night is _identical_ to the one from the week before! He clocks them on the head to knock them unconscious and then uses a gun with a silencer to shoot them in the forehead. No fuss, no muss – this is a man on a mission, and we both know that people like that don't willingly stop killing. I believe the only reason he didn't kill the baby _this time_ is because of remorse for doing so the first time. While the women are left wherever they land when he hits them over the head, after he shot that baby he took a blanket, swaddled the corpse, and put it back in its crib. We both know that's classic – even textbook – remorse."

"Guys?"

All three of the men in the room jumped, although, in the back by himself, Grant went unnoticed, as he always did, when Agent Jareau spoke up, approaching her section chief and SAIC.

"I'm sorry," Agent Jareau said. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop; I was coming over to get my lunch and heard you two talking. I saw that case on the news and everything, but it never hit me until I heard you describe it just now – that description makes it sound like… is there any chance that the unsub in that case is a woman?"

"A woman?" Agent Hotchner repeated.

Agent Jareau nodded eagerly, sliding into a chair across from her bosses as she asked Agent Hotchner, "Don't you remember the Margaret Hullman case? Same sort of execution style murders, same mission-oriented mindset?"

Grant can see that Agent Hotchner is still searching his memory as Agent Jareau continues, "Teacher-student relationship? He called her Maggie?"

Maggie.

It hit Grant then – that thought that had been fluttering in the back of his mind since he had talked to Garcia that morning. Although he couldn't be sure, he was fairly certain that Maggie had called murdering the baby "overkill" Friday morning, and then Friday evening when a murder had been committed, the baby's life hadn't been taken.

He was being paranoid – unbelievably paranoid. He just needed a break from this job worse then he thought he did, apparently. Yet something still didn't sit right with him, and even before he made the decision to trail his sister when she once again went out late the following Friday evening, he somehow already knew what he would find…


	3. Chapter 3

_March 14, 2014_

That didn't make it any easier for him to see and hear though.

Grant had been excruciatingly careful to make sure that Maggie never saw him following her, or realized that anyone was following her, for that matter. He had followed her across town and into one of D.C.'s poorer districts, hoping desperately that she was going here simply to minister to the prostitutes, like she had claimed she had been. He had kept following Maggie as she followed one particular prostitute all the way back to – and inside of – the prostitute's seedy apartment building at the end of the night.

He had watched in horror as Maggie had broken into the woman's apartment, and when he heard the sound of a vase shattering against a skull – just like Cruz said had happened right before the woman was murdered, he nearly cried out. But just nearly – instead he chose to press his lips tightly together and press his ear to the door of the apartment. Grant didn't let himself consider what exactly it was that he was listening for until he heard it – an extremely muffled gunshot.

Knowing that Maggie would be emerging soon, Grant tucked himself into an alcove and waited until he heard that particular apartment door click open in the otherwise silent hallway. A moment later, he pressed himself against the wall, begging for invisibility to his sister's eyes as she passed quickly by him.

It hit him slowly then, little by little – as he darted into the apartment that Maggie had just vacated, as he registered the body of the prostitute still dressed in her 'work wear' and bleeding out into a pillow, and then it hit him hardest of all when he heard a whimper coming from the apartment's tiny bedroom.

The baby. Of course; there had always been a baby at the scene. It was part of the unsubs – of _Maggie's_ – MO.

The whimper escalated to a cry that Grant knew was soon going to become a scream if he didn't do something about it. So he did the only thing he could think of. He stepped quickly into the bedroom, ripping off his jacket – he wasn't stupid enough to leave his fingerprints at a place that was bound to be a crime scene by the end of the weekend – and covered his hands with it, scooping the little girl into his arms and loping out of the apartment building with her pressed to his chest.

It wasn't until Grant was a block away from the place that what had just happened – and what it all meant - began to sink in. His sister had become a serial killer. He had just heard her kill someone; he had seen the crime scene and dead body with his own eyes. And then, then he, brilliant person that he was, had kidnapped the dead woman's child.

Incredible. Wonderful. Why the d*** h*** not?

Speaking of h***, what in the h*** was he supposed to do with this little girl that he was currently holding? Her becoming involved in this certainly hadn't been a part of anyone's plan, least of all his.

He could hear her screaming, muffled though the sound was against his shoulder. Somehow it was monumentally easier to concentrate on her at the moment than it was to think about what Maggie had done, and so Grant just went with it. That was when it registered that he was still walking – had been walking for awhile – and the baby was probably cold. He looked around quickly for an inconspicuous place to go before ducking into a convenience store.

Suddenly encased in the warm air and harsh, flickering fluorescent light of the store, Grant pulled the little girl away from his shoulder and bounced her in his hands while getting his first good look at her.

Her olive skin tone and the darkness of the feathery hair on her head spoke to a Latin American heritage and her eyes were a murky shade of blue that promised to change into something darker later. Grant was willing to bet that this poor kid wasn't three months old yet.

This was one heck of a way to kick start her life.

The question that was still looming though was what in the world was he supposed to do with her? He pondered his options as he went down the aisles of the store, looking for something to feed the baby, since she appeared to his highly untrained eye to be acting hungry.

He finally settled on a cup of milk – wouldn't Maggie be happy if she knew that he had finally gotten some? – and a new idea hit him the moment his hand touched the cold container.

Monday afternoon, Chief Cruz had said that he wouldn't force Agent Hotchner's team to do an in-the-field consultation, but this was possibly the third murder that his sister had committed, and no one was anywhere near finding her. Something had to be done, and if anyone could figure it all out, the BAU could. So the absurd question shot into Grant's mind and stayed. Would Chief Cruz force Hotchner and his agents onto the case if he had reason to believe that the murders were connected to the baby that Cruz found on his doorstep?

* * *

_March 15, 2014_

"Matt, do you hear that?" Danielle asked, cocking her head to the side at the bathroom sink as she brushed her red curls out of her face.

"No," Matt Cruz said, coming up to stand behind his wife. "I was distracted by a lovely beauty. You know, it is Saturday morning, and for once I do actually have the day free, maybe we could have a day of just you and me. We don't even have to leave the bedroom the entire day if you don't want to…"

"Hm…" Dani hummed, leaning back against him with a smile. "Nice try, but we have a breakfast with Rick and Alice in an hour, remember?"

Matt sighed.

"There it is again," Dani insisted. "I think somebody's at the door."

"I'll go check for you," Matt volunteered, heading through the master bedroom and down the hallway to the front door.

He opened it and looked to the left and right without seeing anyone. Then a movement below him drew his gaze downward and his eyes blew wide at what he saw.

He looked around again, scanning the street for anyone, but there was no one in sight.

Looking down at the squirming bundle on his stoop, Matt called to his wife over his shoulder, "We're going to have to cancel those breakfast plans."


	4. Chapter 4

Saturday mornings were always a slow affair in Grant Anderson's apartment. They started out much the same as any of his days did, only much later. Cereal and coffee with Maggie at the bar listening to the news on the radio.

Already on edge and trying to pretend like he wasn't, Grant almost jumped out of his skin when he realized that the newswoman was discussing the murder that had occurred the night before – the murder that his own sister had committed.

_Although we've been told that there were signs of an infant having been at the scene of the crime, the child was not found to be there or in any surrounding areas of the neighborhood. Later found to have been deposited on the doorstep of an undisclosed house in a residential area, the little girl has now been placed in the foster care system._

At that, Maggie seemed as startled as he did, looking at him with wide eyes as his own gaze shot away from her, lest she see something in his eyes that he didn't want her to. Still watching her in his peripheral vision, Grant saw something like realization flash in her eyes as the color drained from her face then return slowly, her eyes just barely narrowing at him. He just lifted another spoonful of cereal to his lips, hoping that he wasn't trembling outwardly – at least not anywhere near as badly as he was quaking inwardly.

Neither one of them spoke until Maggie drained the milk from her bowl and the two of them put their dishes in the sink.

"I'll take care of washing them," Grant volunteered.

"Okay," Maggie said, both of them pretending that there was nothing at all wrong in their little world as she headed out of the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, turning around to look at him and offering, "Hey, Grant?"

"Yeah?"

"You're a good little brother, you know."

Grant smiled, but he couldn't quite make it reach his eyes as he murmured, "Thanks, sis."

* * *

_March 17, 2014_

It had worked! Grant felt twin threads of relief and guilt wind their way through him the following Monday morning when he saw Hotchner and his team gathered in the briefing room with Chief Cruz at the head of it all, presenting the case to them.

* * *

Matt Cruz was stressed out.

Yes, JJ was a profiler, so like everyone else on her team, she was adept at reading human behavior, but she knew Matt as a friend, and that made it all that much easier to figure him out. He was pacing as he spoke, occasionally pointing to the pictures and documents he had brought up on the screen, and his brown eyes held a fierce determination. Having that little girl dropped off at his house had made this case personal for him, and he was ready to fight to find the woman who was doing this.

When Matt ended his presentation and asked if the team had any questions, Garcia asked in a small voice, "What's going to happen to the baby that was left with you?"

Matt sighed and JJ saw him almost rake a hand through his hair before he answered, "My wife has gone maternal on me and decided that the safest place for the baby to be until this case is solved is to remain with us. We got it okayed with the proper authorities over the weekend, and we are now her foster parents."

"Was the baby ever identified?" Morgan asked.

Matt nodded. "Isabel Martinez, the daughter of the woman who was murdered Friday night."

"But why did the unsub take the baby from the murder scene at all?" Reid mused. "At the first murder, the baby was killed as well; the second time, he was just left untouched at the scene of the crime, and now, the third time she was removed entirely. Why?"

"Well," Alex suggested. "we know the unsub showed severe remorse for taking the life of the one child she did kill, which is more than likely the reason she's left the other two alive. Maybe she removed this latest baby as a counter measure because she realized that leaving the child at the scene to make noise led to the body being found that much sooner?"

And just like that the team was off and running in the race to find another killer before he struck again.

_March 21, 2014_

But they didn't work fast enough, and Friday evening found two siblings making their way on foot through the darkness of Washington, D.C., the elder sister entirely unaware of the younger brother as she went about completing her mission for the weekend. Then the brother began his own self-appointed task, this time taking the baby and heading in the direction of the home of one SSA Jennifer Jareau.

Grant had seen her team rally around her before to solve a case, and if they were unhappy about taking this one on because of an order from Cruz, maybe getting Agent Jareau of Chief Cruz's side would help the team's combined desire to apprehend the murderer.

While part of him hated the idea of them putting his sister behind bars, the other part of him knew that there were many, many reasons that it needed to be done. So he left the infant on the doorstep of Officer LaMontagne and Agent Jareau's house and fled.

* * *

By the Friday evening that marked exactly one week after Isabel Martinez had been left at Matt's house, the team was no closer to finding their unsub, and there was still a question niggling around in the back of JJ's mind where her distraught section chief was concerned. She had even stayed late after the rest of the team – even Hotch – to guarantee that she had a couple of minutes alone with her old friend to talk to him about whatever might be bothering him.

Gathering up her courage before she lost her nerve and went home, JJ knocked on the door of his office. She saw Matt's head snap up in surprise from a piece of paperwork – they were all but alone in the office now – but when he saw it was only her, he gestured her in with a wave of his hand.


	5. Chapter 5

"Do you need something before you head out?" Matt asked JJ casually, sitting back in his chair.

JJ closed the door behind herself and got straight to the point, returning a question for a question as she queried, "What's got you so on edge about Isabel Martinez's case?"

"You mean the fact that some psychotic, murderous woman put a child on my stoop within the same hour that she killed that child's mother?"

"It's more than that, Matt, and we both know it," JJ said, approaching the desk.

Matt sighed, deflating in the warm glow if his desk lamp as he gestured to the seat at his desk across from him and declared, "I'm beginning to hate working with profilers."

"What's up?" JJ repeated, sliding into the proffered seat.

"The sky."

"Matt."

It was late at night; Matt no longer really had to care about continuing to look put together, and so he raked a hand through his salt and pepper hair as he answered quietly, "It's a personal matter, JJ."

"Come on, Matt; don't give me that! You know things about me that my own husband doesn't even know! Trust me here! If you want the team working on this case – making it a priority, _the_ priority – you have to give me something to work with here."

The section chief sighed, his gaze drifting to the pen in his hands as he toyed with it, demanding, "What I tell you right now is told in complete confidence, understand? I need to establish myself as the leader of this unit again, and I can't do that if your teammates see me as being any weaker than what they already do."

JJ readied herself to disagree with that last clause, starting, "Matt…"

"Just promise me, agent," he requested fiercely.

"Alright," she murmured, surprised at the tone he had taken.

That tone was gone, though, replaced by something that sounded like discomfort as he admitted carefully, "I'm acting this way because of Danielle."

"Your wife?"

He sighed again, expounding, "For years and years after we got married, Dani and I tried to have a child, but she we were never able to get pregnant. We wanted a child so badly, but it just never happened, and we eventually gave up – or at least I did. I always wondered if Dani didn't wish that we had tried other methods – done something, _anything_ else to have a child – but we never did. We talked about adopting and fostering, but we never looked seriously enough into it, so that never happened either."

"Until Isabel showed up," JJ supplied quietly.

Matt nodded. "I'm afraid that having Isabel in our home any longer than is absolutely necessary will bring all of those feelings back for Dani and hurt her all over again. I don't want to go back to that headspace, and I don't know that I could stand seeing Dani go there again either. That's why I need this baby out of our house as soon as possible before Dani gets even more attached to her."

"And Mrs. Cruz won't give the baby over to be placed in another home until we've found Isabel's mother's killer."

"Please understand, JJ, I just don't want to see my wife get hurt. Having a baby in the house day in and day out, though… I know Dani loves it – and Isabel - and has already gotten used to her presence, and the longer Isabel stays with us, the harder it'll be once she leaves. Honestly, even though I've been trying to keep an emotional distance as well, I'm getting used to it too, and that's starting to scare me. I just want my peace of mine again, JJ, and that can't happen until Isabel is out of my wife's life and my own. That's why I need you to find whoever is killing these women."

JJ nodded solemnly. "I understand; thank you for telling me. And please… know that the team is trying their best; we will catch this woman as soon as we possibly can."

"Thank you."

"We're just doing our job," JJ said with a soft smile as she stood and left her boss's office, suddenly intent on going home and holding her own son in her arms.

Yet time and traffic transpired against the former media liaison and – thanks to a major car wreck on the highway that made a horribly long detour a necessity - JJ didn't get back to her and Will's house until nearly midnight.

By the time that she started up the walk, she was feeling certifiably down. She dug around in her purse to find her house keys, and that was when her foot nudged a package on the porch. Then the package whimpered.

JJ's eyes widened as she knelt down in front of the open cardboard box and found a newborn infant waking up inside.

"Hey there, little one," JJ whispered, her voice shaking as much as her hands were as she looked around for someone who might have left the baby at her house.

She saw no one and so she maneuvered the baby into her arms and stood up, unlocking the door to the house and stepping quietly inside. The light was still on in the kitchen, and JJ stumbled into the room to find Will sitting at the kitchen table.

Will stood up from the table saying, "Hey, J- What is that?"

"A baby," JJ said shakily, looking between her husband and the child in her arms.

Will was at her side in the next second, making sure for himself. "Like with what happened to Cruz?"

"Exactly like it," JJ said, feeling a little dazed.

"So it was the same unsub?"

"I guess."

"Wait just a second. The unsub was here – right outside our house – with me and my son inside, and I never even knew it?!"

"Will, it's fine; at least we're all safe," she looked down at the infant in her arms, adding, "including this little one."

"What are we going to do with her?"

JJ shook her head as she looked down at the tiny girl in her arms. "We have to call the team."


	6. Chapter 6

"JJ, I don't care what the Cruzes are doing!" Will hissed an hour later. "We aren't them!"

The team and more were crawling around their house now, looking for evidence that they couldn't find. Will and JJ were now alone in the kitchen, trying to decide whether or not they needed to ask social services to find a foster home for the unidentified baby that had been left for them.

"I still think that Mrs. Cruz had the right idea," JJ argued. "If the unsub comes after Rose for some reason, she would be safer here with you and I until the murderer is caught."

"Rose?" Will repeated. "Did Garcia finally find out the baby's identity?"

"No," JJ admitted softly. "I just think that we should call her that until we do know who she is – after my sister, Rosaline."

"JJ!" Will objected.

"Please, Will!" JJ begged, caving in and revealing a little bit of her personal reasoning. "I need this," she whispered painfully.

"Why?" he asked in confusion.

JJ swallowed, saying softly, "There are things… that happened in Afghanistan… that I never told you about. Things I have yet to allow myself to grieve over. There was a… person... there that… died on my watch – the one person that I really should have been able to protect. Please, don't ask me to explain further right now, not with the team right on the other side of the door; just know that having Rose around is exactly what I need to be able to heal from that experience." She was surprised to realize how much she wanted this, and to find herself near tears as she repeated, "Please, Will?"

"Okay," he sighed. "If that's what you need, we can try to make it work."

JJ smiled, a solitary tear slipping from her eye as she replied, "Thank you."

He brushed the tear away and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "You're welcome."

* * *

_March 28, 2014_

Da***t to h***! Why weren't they getting a clue yet?!

Although by now he knew full well what to course to follow on these terrible Friday nights after his sister had acted, Grant felt a moment of panic as he looked down at the little boy in his arms – another child representing another life that his sister had taken. The BAU had been on this case for _three weeks_ now, and they had no idea who was killing these women. Were they just not putting enough effort into the case? Was Agent Hotchner's team simply feeding off of his frenzied, distracted energy when it came to this case?

Grant knew that the team tried with every case that they got, and he wasn't stupid enough to believe that this one was the exception. They were trying with this case; Agent Hotchner had just meant it when he said that they were overworked for the time being.

He hated the idea of distracting Agent Hotchner from any of the cases that he and his team were working, but in Grant's own mind, this case had to be solved _now_. So maybe having a baby dropped on his doorstep would give Agent Hotchner the single-minded that getting the case closed appeared to require…

* * *

_March 29, 2014_

"I'll get her," Matt said drowsily, sitting up as Isabel's crying floated across the room from her playpen to his and Danielle's bed.

Dani flipped on the bedside lamp and sat up as he stumbled from the bed. She smiled tiredly, blinking the sleep from her eyes as she watched him stoop over Isabel and scoop her up.

"What?" Matt asked, seeing the tender way she was watching him with the baby.

"Nothing," Dani said happily. "I just think it's funny that for someone who didn't want her in our house to begin with you've become awful sweet on her."

"I have not," he objected, grabbing a bottle for Isabel.

"You're in denial, Matt," Dani grinned.

Matt shrugged, knowing that his wife was right. "Can you blame me?" he asked, shifting her from his shoulder into the crook of his arm. "She's a little bitty baby, and a cute one at that. It's not all that bad having her around."

"I told you so," Dani said merrily. "You can say it now."

"Say what?"

"'Dani, you were right.'"

Matt grinned, repeating, "Dani, you were right."

"I know."

"And so humble."

Dani laughed, but the sound that Matt loved was drowned out by the alert of a text on his work cell phone. Both of the adults looked at the offending piece of technology as Matt's shoulders dropped.

"Really?" he practically whined, seeing the caller ID. "It is my Saturday."

"Who is it?"

"Agent Hotchner. The only thing I can guess it would be is that I told him to call me if he got any new information on Isabel's case."

"New information on a Saturday?"

Matt sighed admitting, "Considering this unsub's timeline, I'm afraid to look at what the text says."

"Do you want me to look for you?"

"No," Matt moaned, afraid that a crime scene photo might have been sent to him.

He shifted Isabel into one arm and picked up his phone, reading the text from Hotchner.

_She left a baby at my house._

Matt sighed heavily, muttering an oath.

"Go," Dani ordered gently, already standing and reaching for Isabel.

"Weren't we going to take her to the park today?" he muttered, handing over the little girl.

"Yes, but we can do that tomorrow; go find the woman who hurt Isabel's first mommy."

Matt was out the door before he realized that what Dani had said implied that she was Isabel's second mother – and that made him a father. He was halfway to his agent's house before he realized that the thought of being Isabel's father – raising the little girl as his own - didn't bother him nearly as much as it had a week ago, if it even bothered him at all.


	7. Chapter 7

"When did this kid get dropped off?" David Rossi was asking Hotch when Matt Cruz parked his car and strode into the house, going over to the huddle of people around the kitchen table that comprised the members of Aaron Hotchner's team.

Aaron looked out at the scene that his yard had become, admitting, "I don't know. The boy wasn't there when I checked the security system before I went to bed last night, then when I went to get the paper this morning there he was on the porch just laying in a cardboard box. I never saw anything, I never heard anything, the CSI can't find _anything;_ it's like this woman wasn't even here!"

"But we know she was," Blake said. "It's just a matter of time before she slips up somewhere."

"We _will_ find her, Hotch," JJ assured him, looking like she'd take down this woman alone if she needed to.

"I don't know guys," Penelope said, glancing up from her laptop's screen. "Whoever she is, this woman is getting smart. I keep turning up blanks on who these murdered women and their children are."

"She's evolving," Morgan said, thinking out loud. "She went from killing an elementary school teacher and her child – who got a lot of press – to killing nameless prostitutes that pretty much no one would miss."

"But if she truly wants to stay anonymous, why is she leaving these children with federal agents?" Blake asked.

"Guys…" Reid theorized. "What if we're dealing with more than one unsub? One could take care of the murdering of the prostitutes, and the other would see to the babies once the job was done."

"She has her own cleanup crew," Rossi remarked.

JJ's brow furrowed as she asked, "What sort of a dynamic would that be though? Judging by what we've seen of these murders, it sure takes a dominant/submissive partnership to an even greater level of submission on the one part."

"Unless he's not even just submissive," Morgan guessed, sitting a little straighter. "Okay, going with our two unsubs theory here – what if one partner was actually being coerced, or didn't even want to be involved at all but felt he or she had to be?"

"A family member of the unsub committing the murders?" Aaron spoke up with his own two cents.

"How does any of that get us any closer to pinning this on our one or two bad guys though?" Garcia asked.

Aaron answered grimly, "It doesn't. Have you found anything on the baby or mother yet?"

Garcia shook her head. "I told you, this lady is getting really smart really fast. I can't find anything on any baby matching our little guy over there," She nodded to the infant boy that had been left sleeping in a whicker basket on the kitchen counter – improvising at its best. "We've got beat cops canvassing the city for any prostitutes that were murdered last night, but so far they've turned up as much as I have, by which I mean nada."

Morgan sighed, summing it up as he said, "So we've got bodies and babies piling up every weekend for – how long has this woman been out there? – a month now, and yet we have nobody to pin this on? Great."

"But we will have her soon," Aaron said, his tone winding with stony determination.

* * *

_April 4, 2014_

But they didn't! They did not have Maggie in custody by the end of the week – they weren't even one step closer to identifying her as the killer – and so she struck again, leaving Grant with one more kid to re-home.

It turned out that the Cruzes seemed to have started a trend when they fostered Isabel Martinez. Agent Jareau and her husband had taken in the baby that they had named Rose. From what Grant had heard, the two families were even getting awfully comfortable with having the little ones around – he had even heard Agent Jareau toss up the word "adoption" a couple of times within the past week – which he thought was great as long as the infants' presences weren't distracting them from the case at hand. Last he had heard, Jessica, Agent Hotchner's former sister-in-law had even talked the SAIC into taking over temporary guardianship of the baby boy that the very same man had christened Gideon.

And though no one had ever accused this particular woman of having any lack of emotions or passion, Grant got the feeling that if Hotchner's team's technical analyst were to try a little harder to dig up her electronic information – maybe break a couple more laws in her hacking if that's what it took – then the team would find Maggie. So he was going to give her emotions the shove that they needed. He placed the little girl in front of Penelope Garcia's apartment and then rushed right back out of the building.

* * *

There were some things that were nonnegotiable in Penelope Garcia's life, and during times like this, when the team was all but drowning in cases; an occasional weekend out on the town was one of those things. The only problem was that it left her a little less than sober whenever she eventually stumbled back up to her apartment.

And it led to outright panic when she found a child in a box in front of her door.

Suddenly crying, Penelope fumbled around in her purse and found her phone, punching a random number on her speed-dial since the members of her team were the only people on the list anyway.

The exact voice that she needed to hear filtered through the smart phone, asking, "Baby Girl, is everything okay?"

"Oh gosh, Derek!" Penelope sobbed. "She was at my house!"

"Who?"

"The freaky, Friday night murders woman! There is a kid in front of my apartment!"

"Where exactly are you? Do you have the baby?"

"I haven't touched anything or even gone inside yet; I just saw the kid in the box and I panicked."

"It's okay to pick the baby up, gorgeous. Just take him inside of your apartment and wait for the team to get there. I'm on my way and I'll call Hotch after I hang up with you."

"Okay," Penelope sniffled, rooting around in her purse for her keys.

"Did you see anyone suspicious hanging around when you came in the building or got up to your floor?"

"No! There was nobody in the lobby except for Jake, the night guy, and the hallway's deserted right now and has been since I got off of the elevator. I didn't see anyone anywhere."

"Okay," Derek replied soothingly. "Just take the little guy-"

"It's a little girl, Derek," Penelope interrupted, glancing down at the box as she shoved her key into the lock on her apartment.

"Then take the little _girl_ ," Derek amended. "Into your place and just sit tight until I get there, alright?"

Penelope sniffed again as she opened the door to her apartment and scooped up the child, box and all. "Alright."


	8. Chapter 8

And it didn't stop there. The longer they couldn't find this woman, or team of killers as the team was now presuming it to be, the more anxious Grant got. Which meant that after Penelope got Annie – she hadn't been quite sober when she'd chosen the reference to the red-headed orphan as her charge's name – Blake got Dayton. Rossi got Luciano the week after, and Morgan insisted upon giving him the shortened nickname of Luc. Then came Morgan's own turn when a little girl was dropped on his doorstep, a tiny African-American that he chose to name Shawna. Reid didn't offer up the "why" when he chose the name Thomas for the baby boy that he received, but for the most part the team was able to realize that it had to do with Thomas Merton, or really Maeve.

Now that every member of the team had gotten a baby dropped off at their house – and had even taken temporary custody of all eight infants, they began to wonder. What would the unsub do with the babies now?

The question became even more unnerving when the team went to the latest murder site on May ninth and found evidence of a child, but no actual child was present. Was the baby already dead elsewhere? Did their unsubs still have the baby? Was the child safe? All of these questions and more began to haunt all of the team, but they never would've even dreamt the idea that one of their own actually came up with for this little boy.

* * *

Grant was becoming frantic. As the days wore on until it was the second weekend in May, he could actually feel himself slowly edging towards a nervous breakdown. This baby boy in his arms marked the _eleventh_ woman that his sister had killed, and though the BAU now had an accurate profile that was all they had.

But nowadays he really didn't know how to feel about that. Keeping this secret was wearing on him in every way possible, yet he knew full well that when Maggie went down, he would now be going down with her. He'd even tallied up how much could possibly be pinned on him.

Obstruction of justice.

Accessory to murder: nine counts.

Kidnapping: nine counts.

Withholding information in a police investigation…

The list just went on and on, and he probably hadn't even thought of half of it yet.

He didn't want to go to jail; he didn't want to turn his sister in; yet a woman was still dying every Friday night when he could stop it. But family just didn't do that to family, right? And why would he send _himself_ off to jail like that as well?

Though asleep in his arms, the baby jumped, kicking Grant in the ribs as the agent wandered around a gas station and thought. It was as if even the child was reprimanding him for what was going through his mind.

Who had given Grant Anderson the right to play God and decide whether or not women continued to die? No one. He didn't have that right.

And yet... he couldn't give up himself or Maggie just yet. He had a feeling that there was one more person who might benefit from having a baby dropped on their doorstep. From what he had seen, there had been nothing but great results so far. And if something did go wrong, then – he hated to say it – at this point, so what? He was going to go to jail anyway. They could just add involuntary manslaughter to their list of charges against him.

He took another minute to formulate a plan, and then jogged to the nearest building with Wi-Fi, the baby still in his arms. This child was a little older than the others, he noticed as he slid him into a highchair at the fast food restaurant where he had ended up. He wasn't over eight months old, but he was no newborn either, like most of the other little ones had been. Maggie was starting to get careless in who she chose to stalk and kill, and a little off at home too; she was going to slip up soon if somebody didn't do something first, and Grant knew it. He would have to be that man.

But he didn't _have to_ until the upcoming Thursday at the earliest.

Right now he just needed to concentrate on getting the little guy beside him to a new home… and maybe even bringing one of the BAU's own back home…

He checked her facebook profile online, realizing that somebody on high must still like him, because this was going to be a lot easier than he had thought it would be. The lady in question was – as of right this second – starting a weekend away on the coast in some place called Bar Harbor, Maine. Now he just had to figure out how to get this kid to her.

_A rental car! Duh, stupid!_

He called a rental company first, and then left a message about a sudden overnight business trip on his sister's cell phone – thank God that she hadn't answered, and knew next to nothing about his real job. If she had, there was no way that she would've bought that story.

An hour later, Grant was on the way with Baby Boy lying, mercifully asleep, in an open cardboard box that he had buckled into the passenger seat. He drove straight through, afraid to stop with the missing little one in the seat beside him, and it was past noon when they finally reached their destination. The kid was a starving, screaming ball of terror by then and Grant was dead on his feet. He used the drive-thru of another fast food place to get the little man an order of French fries to gnaw on and then went and parked the rental car in the far corner of a shopping center parking lot, intent on sleeping until he could complete his job under the cover of darkness.


	9. Chapter 9

"Oh my gosh, JJ," Emily Prentiss moaned into her cell phone. "I cannot believe that tomorrow is my last day here! I don't want to go back to Interpol yet!"

"You know what I can't believe?" JJ asked with a smile in her voice.

"That it's past midnight and we're still talking?"

"That you are only twelve hours away from me right now and you refuse to come see the team! You haven't even met any of the foster babies!"

"Roads work two ways, Jay," Emily reminded.

"We have been so beyond swamped with cases here recently, and besides, I don't think any of us will actually be emotionally or mentally able to take a vacation until we catch whatever duo is killing our kids' bio moms."

Emily's eyes narrowed at JJ's oblivious – and obvious – wording, but she asked as a means of guiding JJ into the questions that she wanted to ask, "How is that case going anyway since I talked to you a couple of weeks ago?"

"We've gotten no solid leads on the profile yet," JJ said, sounding discouraged. "Just dead end tips. I think it's starting to drive us all a little crazy, even Anderson."

"Anderson?" Emily repeated.

"Yeah, you know; the guy who's been stuck doing intern work since before you even came to the team."

"That case is bad enough that it's even getting to him?"

"More like it's getting to us, and the team is getting to him, I guess. Something like that or it may even be something else entirely. Who knows?"

"So, how bad is it, really, since last time we talked?"

"Well…" JJ drawled. "There was a murder last night, as always, but the baby from the scene has yet to turn up which is driving us all a little crazier. Spence got a baby boy left at his apartment last weekend – he named him Thomas – and the weekend before _that_ Morgan was given a little girl that he called Shawna."

"Now, I understand that everything going on behind this is absolutely horrible, but I just have to say: Those poor guys!"

"Poor kids, actually," JJ snorted.

Emily asked in surprise, "Morgan and Reid asked for guardianship of the babies too?"

"Yeah; that makes every member of the team now, but, really, we're all making it work reasonably well. I'm actually very proud of how well Morgan, Reid, and Rossi have adapted to fatherhood."

"Speaking of parents, how's the 'adopt Rose' campaign going?"

"Will and I are talking with a lawyer Monday!" JJ squealed. "And Penelope is definitely going to start the proceedings for adopting Annie. I even think that Cruz and his wife have already gotten a lawyer as of last week and – get this – Hotch is finally settled on the idea of adopting Gideon."

Emily stilled in her trek down the Maine sidewalk, asking, "Really? What did he decide?"

"He's going to go for it! Isn't that great?"

"Yeah," Emily said, being very careful of her tone as she asked, "So, does that mean that he and Beth are in an 'on' moment in the on-off relationship?"

"Oh, geez, no! Didn't I tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Emily asked carefully.

"This last streak of all-consuming cases was the straw that broke Beth's back; she broke it off with him right after the Hastings case, before this whole baby in a basket thing started."

"No," Emily murmured. "I didn't know that."

"Well, now you do," JJ said just a little too cheerfully. "And that gives you one more great reason to haul yourself down here and see us."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Emily asked.

"Emily," JJ said slowly, pointedly. "I am a profiler and, even more importantly, your best friend. You liked Hotch before you left – I suspect seeing him with Beth was even a small part of why you left at all – and you still like him. News flash, Em; he likes you, too! He is now also very available, meaning that when you finally come back here, you can do something about it."

"JJ…" Emily moaned as she made her way up the walk of her rented cabin.

"Come on, Emily! Even just a few hours together could be all you guys need to get this show on the road! I mean, I was a mess when you were over here last time, but I even saw the way you looked at each other then. Imagine what could happen now that Beth's out of the way!"

"No, JJ," Emily said firmly, peering through the darkness at a shape on her porch as she got ever closer to it.

She could barely make out the words written on the box in bold sharpie marker. "From DC." Her mouth dropped as she knelt down and pulled a blanket away from a tiny face.

Luminous eyes blinked up at her in the moonlight as she relocated her voice and said in shock, "You know what, JJ? You might just get your wish. It looks like I'm going to have to come to Quantico."

* * *

"Back so soon after Hastings?"

Emily nearly jumped when she got off of the elevator at Quantico the next evening only to come face to face with Anderson and his question.

"Yeah," Emily said, motioning to the car seat that she was rocking back and forth.

"Geez, you too?" Anderson murmured. "All the way out in London, huh?"

"Actually, I was taking a weekend in Maine, oddly enough."

Anderson nodded, seeming at a loss for words.

"What brings you into the office on a Sunday?" Emily offered.

"Oh, I heard there was another break in the case. With all of these little kids involved, it's hard not to want to do something about it, so I got curious, thought I would come in under the guise of doing some paperwork and hear what I can hear about your little man. Besides, with my sister having moved in with me after her divorce a few months ago, life's kind of gotten weird at my place."

"She'll come around I'm sure," Emily said sympathetically before a flash of bright pinks, purples, greens, and oranges caught her peripheral vision.

A moment later, Emily was swept up in a hug the likes of which could only come from Penelope Garcia, and Anderson had vanished.


	10. Chapter 10

"Ahh!" Penelope squealed. "You're here; you're here; you're here!"

Emily laughed as she took in the sight of her bubbly friend. "And _you_ just scared away poor Anderson."

"Oh, he's fine! I just had to get over here and see your baby boy!" Garcia gushed as she lowered the yellow blanket from the awning of the car seat so that she could see the child underneath.

"Why does everyone keep saying that it's a boy? I only talked to JJ about him when I found him; I didn't mention to anyone else that he was a boy."

Penelope waved her concern off, taking the car seat from Emily and lowering it to the floor so that she could take the baby out of it. "JJ mentioned that detail to the team."

"Was Anderson there when she mentioned it?" Emily asked, a sudden thought flitting across her brain.

Penelope scooped the baby into her arms and stood, cocking her head as she thought. "No. As a matter of fact, I think he mentioned taking a personal trip over the weekend." Penelope shrugged carelessly. "He must have just gotten back. What's this little guy's name?"

Emily blinked, startled by the change in train of thought. "That depends on whether or not you were able to find anything on him."

Penelope shook her head in frustration. "I couldn't find anything on anyone after Isabel Martinez. We think the unsubs started going after undocumented immigrants for the safety of the relative anonymity."

"Then his name is Matthew," Emily answered absently, looking past Penelope's shoulder into the bullpen. "Is the team-?"

Penelope nodded. "They're all ready and waiting for us in the round table room. Be careful though; it looks more like a daycare in there right now."

"Alright," Emily said, still distracted as she strode through the doors into the bullpen and then the conference room with single-minded determination.

For the moment, she wasn't even freaking out about seeing Aaron Hotchner again.

"Give me the rundown of the profile again," she said, her tone seeming sharp to all of her former team members who were eager to see her again.

"Hello to you too," Rossi said dryly.

"Hello," Emily allowed with a timid smile and a glance at each one of them. "I think I might have just gotten a really strange idea of who our killers could be; I just need to know if they fit the profile."

"Well," Blake said, seeming to be the most willing to slide into Emily's work-minded train of thought. "Two family members; Caucasian, most likely in their mid to late thirties. We think that the actual murderer might have something against not necessarily prostitutes but cheating spouses. Of the three children that we could identify, all the fathers were married men who were either divorced or in the separation process – but those men were never married to the baby's mother."

Rossi continued, "We think that the murderer may have found out that her husband was unfaithful and divorced him. The finalization of the divorce would not only be the stressor, but also explain the direction the rage has taken towards women who had children by married men. She may not get any particular enjoyment out of the kills, but she sees herself as a judge of sorts – someone who's giving these women the punishment that they deserve."

"So where does the behind the scenes partner come in?" Emily asked.

"He didn't," Reid spoke up. "At least not at first. We think the first murder he was involved in was that of Isabel's mother. He left her with the Cruzes – and the other babies with the rest of us – as his way of crying out for help from the BAU."

"Would a sister and brother be the right dynamic for that profile?" Emily double-checked, glancing out the window when she saw Anderson creep by outside, crossing the window as he went back and forth every so often, trying to be inconspicuous.

"Absolutely," Rossi said. "That's what we've been gravitating towards as it is."

"And you've considered the fact that it could be someone that we work with?"

Blake said, "Considering all the circumstances, it was unavoidable."

"Well, I think our non-murdering partner just gave himself away to me," Emily muttered.

Penelope looked at her in confusion, asking, "What do you mean?"

Out of her peripheral vision, Emily saw Anderson guiltily streak by, and she darted after him, calling over her shoulder, "I mean him!"

Aaron was the next one out of the room, following on her heels as he realized what she was saying. Anderson didn't have much of a head start and Emily caught him at the elevator, forcing him onto his knees while numerous FBI employees stopped and stared at the goings on. And, surprisingly, he didn't fight her. Once he had been caught, he almost seemed relieved to have it end.

But solving the case and putting away Maggie Richards and Grant Anderson was only the beginning of it all for the team and Emily.

* * *

Emily had made numerous trips from London in the past three months since arresting Anderson and Maggie, following the court proceedings on the case and even testifying therein. Every member of the team still had in their custody the baby that they had been given, and some big decisions still had to be made by some of the team members. Will and JJ had long had their decision made, as had Cruz and Danielle, but for others there were things – both things involving the babies and others that didn't so much – that needed to be figured out.

Derek Morgan's and Penelope Garcia's long and flirtatious friendship had begun to dance around the line of becoming an actual relationship the more time Penelope spent with Derek helping him figure out how to be a caregiver to little Shawna. Alex Blake and her husband, James, had been tossing the idea of adopting Dayton back and forth, but both felt that it would be impossible with their living in different cities. This left Alex wondering what she truly wanted more – the job that she had at the BAU or a normal family life with a husband and son. And then there was that small matter of when the heck would Emily and Aaron get their feelings for one another straightened out…


	11. Chapter 11

It was mid-August by now, and the team plus the team member's spouses and Emily were going out for a celebratory picnic after having seen Maggie and Anderson's case to a satisfactory close earlier in the afternoon.

"To getting justice for these women and kids," Rossi proposed, putting his Pepsi up for a toast.

Penelope added, "And to family."

"Justice and family," Rossi nodded. "Two of the best things in this world."

The toast was made around the picnic table, but Alex's mind was obviously elsewhere.

"What's up, buttercup?" Penelope asked, jabbing her lightly with her elbow.

Alex sighed, looking down at Dayton on her other side in her husband's arms. "I… have an announcement to make." She looked to Hotch, and her boss nodded minutely, giving her permission to continue.

The team had all seen this sequence of events before, and, considering the rumors that had been flittering around the Bureau of late, they knew what it meant.

It was Reid who said the words aloud, and they came out in a sad, childish murmur. "You're leaving."

Alex swallowed and nodded, eyes averted. "I'm moving to Boston to be with James and Dayton. It'll be better for Dayton if we're living together as a normal family. You all know that." She met every gaze that was turned onto her requesting, "Please tell me you understand."

Everyone nodded. They all knew how hard this job was on families.

"Who are you going to have coming into the team once she leaves?" Derek asked Hotch.

"I don't know," Hotch said carefully. "I've got a short list made up, but I've got to see what a couple of my first choices say before I say anything definite."

"Who's on the short list?" JJ asked curiously.

"A couple of different women; why?"

JJ shot a vaguely giddy smile in the direction of Penelope, whose eyes were glittering far too much.

"Don't you two get that look in your eyes," Rossi reprimanded. "Everybody knows what you're thinking, and there is this matter of the things called fraternization rules."  
JJ snorted and called him a hypocrite to which the older Italian just grinned charismatically.

"Like I said," Hotch repeated, sending sharp, yet somehow still amused, looks towards the two women. "We'll have to wait and see. And besides," he changed the subject, shooting a surprisingly bright grin towards Derek and Penelope. "It isn't like we've been paying any attention to those fraternization rules anyway lately, have we?"

Derek grinned just as smoothly, winding an arm around the shoulders of the tech analyst at his side as he said only – a confession in and of itself – "Nope."

JJ screamed, Emily yelped, and most of the others just started laughing and swapping congratulations and wisecracks with Derek and Penelope.

"What did I miss?" Reid asked, completely clueless.

"Derek's finally laying claim to his 'Baby Girl'." JJ said in a mocking imitation of Morgan.

Reid snorted, informing Morgan, "It's about time, man."

"What happened to Savannah?" Rossi asked curiously.

Derek shrugged. "We just couldn't find the time to make it work. So I figured if time was the issue, and work was what took up all of my time, why not just find the girl of my dreams at work, right?"

Aaron caught Dave's meaningful glance in his direction as the older profiler agreed, "That's about right."

* * *

Later on in the afternoon, Aaron glanced towards the slides a few paces away – out of hearing range – to see that Jack was safely well-occupied playing with Henry before he turned back to the task of pushing Matthew gently in a baby swing. Emily sat on the adjacent normal swing with Gideon in her lap, rocking back and forth. The rest of the team was still gathered around the picnic tables, which were also out of hearing range. If he wanted to talk to Emily about what was on his mind, now was an opportune time to do it.

"So… about that short list," he said carefully.

Emily was acting purposely oblivious when she asked, "What about it?"

"You're at the top of it. If you want your old job back. JJ and Garcia swear up and down that they think you're miserable at Interpol."

"They're right," Emily confessed softly. "I miss really being out in the field. The city's horrible; I've learned that I hate London. It's lonely there. And I have to deal with _so_ much politics!"

"You hate politics," Aaron said.

"I know." Then she added deliberately, "And I hate that you're not there with me."

Aaron smiled a little, willing his heart not to hammer as he clarified, "You mean the team."

"No," Emily twisted on the swing to look up at him, eyes and heart both wide open and trusting. "I mean _you_. I miss you, Aaron, and whatever crazy, stupid, useless, unspoken thing it was that we had – maybe we still have it; I don't know. All I know is that I have so loved coming back here these past few months for this case just for the fact that I get to be around you guys again – all of you as in the team, and as in you in particular. And Jack and Henry and all of these babies, and… you're my family, Aaron, and I don't want to have to go back to London."

"Then don't," he replied simply. "Stay here – with me and Jack and Gideon, and maybe even Matthew if you want."

Emily smiled, her eyes glassy and pink with unshed tears as she admitted in a hoarse whisper, "I would love that."

Aaron slapped his heart onto his sleeve, replying quietly, "And I love you, you know."

"I do know," Emily said with a smile.

He smiled in return, leaning down to meet Emily where she was sitting on the swing and kissing her softly. They had both waited for this for so long that neither one of them wanted to let the moment go by too quickly.

However, JJ and Garcia had no such qualms, and both began screaming wildly as they caught sight on Aaron and Emily.

"Please tell me you're coming back to the BAU," Garcia begged Emily as the two dark-haired agents left the swings and came back to the picnic table to take whatever the team had to say to them.

"And so that you two can finally be together," JJ added, gesturing to Aaron.

"What about the fraternization rules?" Emily asked. "Don't I have to choose the job or the man?"

Cruz spoke up from the other end of the table, speaking as the final authority that he was. "Just make sure that it doesn't affect your work, and there will be no problems. _Si_ , agents?"

" _Si_ ," Aaron and Emily answered in unison.

"So you're back?" JJ double-checked with Emily.

"I am back – and even in love!" Emily cried, throwing her arms around her best friend.

When Emily, JJ, and Garcia were done throwing their mini party, Aaron laced his arms around Emily's waist and pulled her to him, her back to his front as they talked with the team.

"You know," JJ remarked. "If it weren't for the fact that he could've stopped the murders of those women, I would almost feel bad for putting Anderson in prison."

"Why?" Will asked.

"Well, think about it. He gave each one of us a child and that was the reason that Derek and Pen finally got together, and it's also how we got our Emily back – and back in love with Hotch. He was actually very instrumental in giving us a happy ending, wasn't he?"

Aaron kissed Emily's hair, whispering so that only she could hear, "Yes, he was. Welcome back home, Em."


End file.
